Carbon cut: Tomatin distillery was the first in Scotland to install a sustainable biomass boiler from Balcas
Scotland has a proud heritage of whisky making that can be traced back as far as the 13th century. Today’s distilleries use recipes and processes that have been honed and perfected over many years. But, with the industry facing the very modern concerns of energy efficiency and the reduction of carbon emissions, it is now having to consider overhauling its processes and rethinking the use of some traditional technologies.
One of the most energy-intensive elements of the process is heating thousands of litres of water at a time, either to mix with malt barley flour or ‘grist’ in mash tuns to begin the fermentation process, or to distil the whisky by evaporating the remaining water in copper pot stills – traditionally done with coal or peat, and now with steam.
Many distilleries power these processes using environmentally unfriendly heavy fuel oil boilers. A typical medium-sized distillery is liable to use 1-3 million litres of heavy fuel oil a year. That adds up to a significant carbon footprint.
This has led to the Scotch Whisky Association setting industry-wide targets, with the aim that by 2020 20% of energy requirements will be derived from non-fossil fuels, rising to 80% by 2050. But is an industry so steeped in history and tradition willing to adopt modern energy-saving technologies?
While many may be inclined to believe that the industry would be resistant to change, there is something of a green revolution occurring across a number of Scotland’s distilleries. This is being driven by the Green Investment Bank, a government body that has £3.8 billion of public funds at its disposal to support environmentally friendly projects, and aims to encourage further investment from the commercial market. It recently announced £5 million of funding, half of it sourced from the private sector, to inject into energy projects at Scottish whisky distilleries.
The projects will finance the installation of biomass boilers to replace the existing heavy fuel oil plant. Two distilleries, Tomatin and Aberfeldy, have come on board, with five
more set to install green biomass boilers in 2015.
Lotta bottle: John Dewar is installing a biomass boiler at its Aberfeldy distilery
Gregor Paterson-Jones, managing director of energy efficiency at the Green Investment Bank, explains why it chose to invest in the Scottish distillery sector: “Distilleries were one of the attractive sectors on our list for many reasons but particularly because of the technology they use. With the replacement of old boilers, many of which are off the gas grid and run on heavy fuel oil, we can reduce very high emissions.” He adds: “The industry also has a concentration of global brands and activity in a small area, making it of great importance to the local economy.”
With the intention of making Scotland’s distilleries leaner and greener, the bank sought out a company that could provide the technology required. Irish saw-milling firm Balcas Timber stepped in to fill this role, having not only the expertise and biomass boiler technology, but also the green credentials needed for the job.
These credentials include the building of Britain and Ireland’s first 2.7MWe wood-fired combined-heat-and-power plant, together with a 55,000 tonnes-a-year wood-pellet factory. This was followed in 2009 by a similar plant, at Invergordon in the Highlands, which produces 8.6MWe and 100,000 tonnes of pellets a year. Some 2.5MWe of this power is used to fuel its own operations, while the rest goes to the national grid. This £40 million investment allows Balcas to offer distilleries a reliable source of biofuel. David Kidney, technical director of Balcas, says: “More recently we have developed a fully integrated energy solution which is particularly suited for process industries that do not have access to the gas grid or wish to decarbonise even further than gas allows. The biomass plants or boilers are typically 1-5MW, delivering saturated steam, hot water or thermal oil.”
It was this technology, ideal for providing clean power to distilleries, that caught the attention of the green bank. In 2013 Balcas partnered with the bank’s fund manager Equitix to gain access to the government money needed to install the biomass boilers as part of energy supply contracts at distilleries around Scotland. The cost can run from £1 million to several million pounds per project, depending on what is included in the supply contract.
They now provide distilleries with a complete turnkey service, which includes all necessary permits, civil construction, and integration with an existing system. It also includes application to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), a government environmental programme that provides subsidies to industry, payable for 20 years, for the use of renewable heat generators.
In addition, Balcas is responsible for all monitoring and maintenance of the machinery, as well as fuel supply from its wood-pellet plant in Invergordon, for the RHI contract period of 20 years.
Traditional methods: Inside the Tomatin distillery
Tomatin, near Inverness, joined the project in 2013 and became the first Scottish distillery to install a sustainable biomass steam boiler. The 4MW plant consists of a vertical shell and tube boiler with a fixed grate that is coupled to twin 100m3 pellet silos with integrated loading, feeding and metering.
It allows Tomatin to displace most of the distillery’s heavy fuel oil by producing both heat and steam for whisky making. Kidney says it immediately improved the distillery’s energy efficiency after installation, cutting carbon emissions by 80%, or more than 4,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. The project was not only successful in helping Tomatin to achieve challenging renewables targets but also in debunking some misconceptions held about, and by, the distillery industry. Kidney says: “The distilleries are as a whole extremely conservative. However, the management at Tomatin had a more innovative turn of mind and have been wonderful to work with.”
Tomatin’s manager Graham Eunson says it was by no means an easy decision to break with tradition: “We were the first to adopt this kind of boiler, so it was a bit of a risk in going to a new style of energy. There were concerns over how it would work with the varying peaks and troughs of energy load that we require. But we still have the secondary oil boiler to deal with the peaks in demand, which has proved useful.” It was always known that the peaks in this distillery exceeded the biomass boiler’s 4MW capacity.
Kidney says Balcas carried out the “modification of boiler controls, the control of valves and the combustion process” to ensure the boiler could cope with the sudden and extreme load changes in the distillery process. He adds: “There is a misperception that biomass is suitable only for baseloads but our experience at Tomatin has largely dispelled that myth.” Balcas’s pellet-fuel technology has performance characteristics very different from wet wood chip or anaerobic digestion.
With a massive cut in carbon emissions and 80% of the distillery’s energy now generated from the biomass boiler, Eunson agrees that it was a risk worth taking. But it was the financial gain, not the green benefits, that was at the forefront of Tomatin’s decision to install the new technology. “Ultimately, it is a success,” he says. “It’s saving us money and it’s saving energy. But there had to be the financial incentive for us to go ahead with the new boiler. The added benefit is that it reduces our carbon footprint too.”
Eunson says the project was made financially feasible thanks to the Renewable Heat Incentive. “If there had not been additional government funding,” he says, “we would have most likely not invested in this equipment.”
Paterson-Jones of the Green Investment Bank says that smaller distilleries often believe that investing in green technology is a luxury. Concerns about the bottom line and building brand identity trump any ambitions to meet green targets.
The Aberfeldy still house
Aberfeldy is the second distillery to join the project. It’s run by John Dewar & Sons, the fifth-largest blended whisky brand in the world, and owned by drinks giant Bacardi. Green targets are high on the group’s agenda. Stuart Lowthian, Bacardi’s global technical director, explains the aims of the company’s aptly named Good Spirited environmental sustainability programme. There are targets for responsibly sourcing materials, reducing packaging weight and improving operational efficiencies at its 29 facilities. These focus on reducing water use and greenhouse emissions.
Lowthian says: “In terms of greenhouse gases, we’ve got lots of improvements in the pipeline. One of the big areas for us is the use of anaerobic digesters at our rum distillery in Puerto Rico, which create a considerable amount of renewable energy. That has reduced our global emissions by 29% from our base year of 2006. “However, it was clear that to reach our target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2017 we needed to do more.” So attention turned to Bacardi’s five Scottish distilleries.
Two of the distilleries used heavy fuel oil, so the Dewar’s team identified biomass boilers as offering the best solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. After hearing about Balcas’s track record, an energy-saving contract with the company was entered into this year.
The Aberfeldy biomass boiler is due to be commissioned by October. Iain Lochhead, operations director at John Dewar & Sons, is confident it will deliver fast results. “By converting the fossil-fuel boiler to a wood-pellet boiler, we expect a reduction of 90% of our greenhouse gas emissions at Aberfeldy. The reason why there remains that 10% is because we still use electricity at the site,” says Lochhead.
He adds: “We believe that we will save 6,500 tonnes of CO2 per year from converting the boiler. That will reduce Bacardi’s overall greenhouse gas emissions by 6% globally.”
Unlike Tomatin, Aberfeldy distillery will not use its old heavy fuel oil boiler as back-up during times of high energy demand. To ensure that the new boiler will be able to cope with the peaks and troughs typical of distillery operations, Lochhead explains, they have streamlined processes at the distillery.
He says: “A distillery’s daily production cycle is pretty predictable. There are certain operations that happen regularly. So we know during each day when we’ll be running the mash tun and when we’ll be stopping the stills – we have to make sure that we move the peaks so they don’t all coincide. That way we’re running the boiler at a steady rate throughout the 24-hour period rather than ramping it up and scaling it back.”
Showing confidence in the biomass technology, Lochhead says the firm is already in discussions with Balcas to install another boiler at the larger Royal Brackla whisky distillery in Nairn. The aim is to have the documentation signed before Aberfeldy is commissioned.
Bacardi has also financed the installation of a biomass boiler at its Bombay Sapphire gin distillery at Laverstoke Mill in Hampshire, with another planned for its Cazadores tequila plant in Mexico.
Although Bacardi has the resources and forward-thinking attitude of a modern corporation happy to invest in renewables technology, how did those on the ground at the 120-year-old Aberfeldy distillery react to the changes? Lochhead says: “People understand the reasons behind it and the importance of reducing carbon emissions. The men and women in the distillery are delighted they’re at the forefront of improving the green credentials of Scotch whisky.”
With the success of projects like Tomatin and Aberfeldy, Paterson-Jones hopes the industry will realise the benefits of going green. “This is absolutely a demonstration,” he says. “We’ve got the responsibility to accelerate investment, and we can do that by showing the distilleries that you can make a commercial return on it. That would be the number one prize. As you do more of these, and as you get the word out, others will follow. It won’t necessarily be with our funding but we would have been successful in our mandate if we stimulate the market.”
According to Kidney of Balcas, which has been in touch with more than 100 distilleries, the industry is already waking up to the benefits of adopting this new technology. Aberfeldy is set to be commissioned in October, Inver House’s Balmenach distillery in January, and a further five boilers should be installed in 2015.
The company expects more distilleries to follow and has recruited a young engineer from its mentoring scheme to join the project.
Kidney says: “The industry is noticing they can achieve two things. First of all, a very significant operating cost reduction for those who are off-gas. And, secondly, they can just about achieve their 2050 carbon reduction targets, which is an extremely significant milestone.”